Legislation and Genealogy: Communication Deadlines

Overview of Genealogy Laws

You have surely already experienced this, and you may have sometimes been stumped by it, but like any activity related to private life and personal information, genealogy is subject to strict legislation. 

Brief overview 

This affects several aspects of genealogy.

First, the communication deadline for archives: they are accessible after 75 years for vital records, judicial files, or military records, and 120 years for medical information from the date of birth if the date of death is unknown, 50 years if it is known. However, be careful with more recent marginal notes appearing on records that have become accessible, which could infringe on the privacy of the people concerned. The CNIL has decided that these notes should not appear online for 100 years after the closure of the birth registry.

For anything related to living individuals, the manager of a website processing data about these individuals is subject to the law that requires that any data consisting of information that can identify a natural person is subject to that person's consent. 

Thanks to the Data Protection Act of January 6, 1978, these individuals whose data is processed can object to it, particularly when their name appears on an online family tree. 

Additionally, data related to ethnic origins, political or religious opinions, or sexual orientation cannot be reused. 

For deceased individuals, information about them is no longer considered personal and can therefore be used if it is not likely to harm their heirs.

Genealogy and Technology: When Innovation Brings New Debates

Genealogy has not been forgotten by technological advances and has been able to adapt to them and even use them as a tool; this is how DNA sequencing can help identify the prehistoric group of one's ancestors, the origin people in antiquity of those ancestors, or even the region where one's genetic profile is most commonly found. In France, DNA tests are only authorized in three cases: court decisions, for medical purposes, or in the context of scientific research.

Recently, there have also been many debates about what some call the « plundering » of genealogical trees. To summarize, this concerns people who copy information from trees stored in databases. However, genealogical data is not subject to copyright, as it is public information, and unless one has their own software, the databases do not belong to genealogists. Moreover, isn't genealogy based on sharing? Here is a debate that is far from finished stirring passions.